About
After a 40 year career as a Professor of Psychology, I pondered a question that I had avoided many times, namely, how did I, as a second-generation Chinese American fit in a black and white society in Macon, Georgia where we were the only Chinese in the entire city from the late '20s to early '50s when Jim Crow segregation was yet to be challenged. My attempt to understand how my ethnic identity emerged to my memoir, Southern Fried Rice: Life in A Chinese Laundry in the Deep South. I soon realized from responses of readers and audiences when I gave book talks/signings all over the U. S. that here was an important story to preserve and share. I met other Chinese that also grew up in cultural isolation where they were the only Chinese in their communities and/or they also grew up helping in their parents' laundry, restaurant, or grocery store.
I was inspired to write three additional books, all exploring how Chinese immigrants from the late 1800s until beyond the middle of the past century managed to overcome the hostile societal prejudices against Chinese and other "Orientals" and succeed running family businesses such as laundries, grocery stores, and restaurants.
Writing and speaking about these 4 books led to many important but unanticipated discoveries and contacts with other Chinese Americans. In my fifth book, A Chinese American Odyssey: How a Retired Psychologist Makes a Hit as a Historian, I describe these experiences and discuss some important things I learned about writing, researching, publishing, and publicizing my books.
Description
<p><strong><em>A tragic warrior lost in two worlds... Which one will he choose?</em></strong></p><p>The war in Iraq ended for Freddie when an IED explosion left his mind and body shattered. Once a skilled gamer as well as a capable soldier, he's now a broken warrior, emerging from a medically induced coma to discover he's inhabiting two separate realities.</p><p>The first is his waking world of pain, family trials, and remorse—and slow rehabilitation through the tender care of Becky, his physical therapist. The second is a dark fantasy realm of quests, demons, and magic, which Freddie enters when he sleeps. The lines soon blur for Freddie, not just caught between two worlds, but lost within himself.</p><p>Is he Lieutenant Freddie Williams, a leader of men, a proud officer in the US Army who has suffered such egregious injury and loss? Or is he Frederick, Prince of Stormwind, who must make sense of his horrific visions in order to save his embattled kingdom from the monstrous Horde, his only solace the beautiful gardener, Rebecca, whose gentle words calm the storms in his soul.</p><p>In the conscious world, the severely wounded vet faces a strangely similar and equally perilous mission to that of the prince—a journey along a dark road, haunted by demons of guilt and memory. Can he let patient, loving Becky into his damaged and shuttered heart? It may be his only way back from Hell.</p>
Story Behind The Book
A Chinese American Odyssey is a memoir that describes the discoveries, many unexpected, when a Chinese American psychology professor retires and reinvents himself as a public historian of the Chinese in America.
Author of four books on the social history of Chinese family-run businesses, he has given dozens of lectures around the country. A Chinese American Odyssey provides a fascinating and insightful behind-the-scenes look at the processes involved in researching, writing, publishing, and promoting books. Writers of books on any topic will find useful information.
